Blurring the lines between jazz and rock in ECM and blues-tinged playing in compositions with a solid melodic center, Washington-area guitarist Anthony Pirog presents an album of lyrical music tinged by electronics and rich with evocative environments, performed with Michael Formanek on acoustic and electric bass, and Chess Smith on drums, percussion & electronics.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2020 Country: USA Packaging: Jewel Case Recorded at The Brink Analogue Studio, in Centreville, Virgina, by Mike Reina.
"In music, the art of the trio involves a delicate balance and holds the potential for great power. On Anthony Pirog's Pocket Poem, his second solo album and fifth release on D.C. based Cuneiform Records, the Washington D.C. alt guitar hero and his rhythm section wring all the beauty, majesty, and mayhem possible from their triumvirate. Pirog is to guitar what Michael Jordan was to basketball - he's capable of anything he can conceive, and his conception covers quite a bit, from ambient atmospheres and mind-melting electronic subversions of sound to lyrical acoustic picking and fiery fusion.
One of Pirog's most recent projects before releasing Pocket Poem was a band that redefines the rock power trio. Pirog teamed with hometown legends Brendan Canty and Joe Lally of punk rock superband Fugazi to form The Messthetics, releasing two albums on Ian MacKaye's iconic D.C. label Dischord and delivering their post-post-punk brain/brawn merger to tens of thousands at the 2019 Coachella festival.
But rock is not the only arena in which trios hold a powerful say; some of jazz's greatest moments were also realized by trios. Pirog had studied jazz guitar and performance at Berklee College of Music and NYU during his college years. When he partnered with two other jazz stalwarts - acoustic bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Ches Smith - for his first solo session, 2014's Palo Colorado Dream (Cuneiform Records) he happened upon a special kind of chemistry. Formanek is a jazz vet who's recorded with Dave Liebman, Fred Hersch, and the Mingus Big Band, as well as popping up on albums by Elvis Costello and the like. Smith is a fixture of the downtown NYC scene who's worked with other forward-thinking guitar conceptualists like Mary Halvorson, Marc Ribot, and Elliott Sharp, in addition to making records with Tim Berne, John Zorn, and countless others. When the three first came together, their ability to egg each other on to fresh territory led to some lightning-in-a-bottle moments.
For Pocket Poem, Pirog's second solo project, he decided to expand the trio's palette by mixing modern technology with vintage guitar synthesizers. "The use of guitar synths by John Abercrombie and Allan Holdsworth is very interesting to me," he says, "and I wanted to explore the timbral possibilities available using these instruments in the recording process."
Envision Adrian Belew, Tortoise, Bill Frisell, Bert Jansch, and Brian Eno squeezing into a particle accelerator. The end result after flipping the switch might sound something like Pocket Poem. The album touches on every aspect of Pirog's musical personality - rock, jazz, avant garde, electronic, even folk - and with his cohorts' contributions, it all arrives at a place that's progressive in the most literal sense. At once exploratory and reflective, subtle and storm-brewing, organic and high-tech, Pocket Poem establishes Pirog's place not just as a major guitar threat but also as a gifted composer."-Cuneiform Records